Winterlights by Elleth

Fire on the High Moor

For prompt #1: By the fire. Arwen and Gilraen meet on the High Moor.

Read Fire on the High Moor

Winter creeps from the mountains, and the High Moor lies buried in snow, changing it into a colourless landscape where snow and chalk cliffs rival over the whiter shade. Gilraen likes the winter, the wind first biting, then numbing her face during a brisk ride, and finally the stars rising sharply minuscule beyond the arc of the cave she furnished for shelter.

Arwen, during her rare visits to Imladris, comes to her then. Together they light the fire, sometimes sitting in silence, sometimes humming songs and endearments, sometimes throwing off heavy garments and basking in the heat on bare skins.

Winter Songs

For prompt #2: First snowfall. Nimrodel and Mithrellas greet the cold season.

Read Winter Songs

Winter swept into Lórinand from the east-plains and froze the waterfall. Nimrodel was more than equal to the task, taking up the song where her stream had been reduced to gurgles underneath the ice, and although she asked for honey to soothe her voice by twilight, she kept vigil through the dark, and by dawn again leaned on Mithrellas’ shoulder, nestling against her shawl and yawning. “They have heard.”

Mid-morning, clouds rolled in on the wind and wreathed the forest in downfeather flakes. Mithrellas smiled and began to sing a greeting, and pausing only to kiss her, Nimrodel joined in.

Gratitude

For prompt #3: Under the mistletoe. Nellas shows Niënor a token of life in winter.

Read Gratitude

The dark and cold of girithron numbs Niënor's exuberant spirits; she vanishes into a bundle of blankets, sleeping curled against Nellas. "I miss life, and green things," she says when she wakes, and seeks Nellas' eyes, her own pained with summer-memories.

"All life must rest in winter," says Nellas, "but one, and thrushes flock to it." It takes coaxing, but they wrap in furs and wander into the Queen's orchards, where the deer seek fruit beneath the snow, and high in an apple-tree, coiling bright green against the leaden sky, grows mistletoe.

Niënor's bright gratitude is better than the kisses.

Sun Ensnared

For prompt #4: Decoration. Tauriel of Mirkwood entertains a visitor from Dorwinion.

Read Sun Ensnared

Beeswax candles reflect in bronze mirrors, on the fur of red foxes, and amber gifted from the shores of Rhûn: Tauriel’s chambers gleam deep golden, and the light plays like a fire in her hair. But for all the lavish decoration, she has – and needs – on herself only her parents’ pendant at the hollow of her throat, and indeed when Baraneth sidles into the chamber, Tauriel wears nothing but.

"As though you caught the sun in here; one would never think that it is winter outside."

"I will release her with the solstice thaw." Regret and mulled wine tint Tauriel’s voice into something heavy, but she nuzzles behind Baraneth’s ear where her black hair curls, trailing her lips over the elaborate ear-cuff, itself a fashion from her eastern homeland.

"Ah," says Baraneth softly, understanding, and turning caresses Tauriel’s face. "But likenesses attract… all this gold here, and you. The sun will not be needed in Dorwinion again until the summer, to ripen the grapes for the wine you forest-dwellers so love. Perhaps with all this decoration she may wish to grace you with her presence at solstice, or longer… and who would deny her?"

A smile. “Not I…”

Tongue-Tied

For prompt #5: Family dinner. Findis and Elemmírë encounter a problem.

Read Tongue-Tied

"Tongue-tied? Where is your confidence?" murmured Findis. Her fingers strummed lightly over Elemmírë’s hand on the harpstrings, and lingered at her wrist with gentle pressure. "Your heart is racing."

"My heart sits beside me, and she knows well her charms," said Elemmírë. "Reprimanding her would be words wasted, and insincere."

"You are merely called to entertain us at dinner tonight, not profess your love to me before my entire family."

"And if I am called to sing of love, my gift will show my inmost heart."

"Sing of another kind of love."

"You inhabit far too many," answered Elemmírë, sighing.

Araman

For prompt #6: Holiday sweater. There is some warmth to be found in Araman for Aredhel and Elenwë.

Read Araman

A herd of muskoxen die to feed the host of Nolofinwë. Írissë returns first among the hunters, near-invisible in white on white, too tired for triumph. Elenwë rushes at her through the icy gale, all relief at her safety: Araman is almost Cuiviénen again, but hiemal, ice glistening in sharp, far, biting stars. Still they need food, need clothing, well past disgust at raw hides bearing oxen stench. Írissë secures two, for Elenwë and for Itaril, wreathing them in the long furs, and the women sit, foreheads together, while the wind fails to rip away the little warmth between them.

Never, Never, Never

For prompt #7: Blizzard. Aredhel and Elenwë on the northward road, and a terrible premonition.

Read Never, Never, Never

If the storm grows any worse, it will tear away the canvas Írissë and Elenwë crowd beneath, arms slid around each other and fingers locked desperate for some warmth, steaming breaths mingling in the blistering air. Elenwë buries her nose in Írissë’s hair, pressing cold lips to her cheek. Her teeth are chattering; she is taking this the harder – for all her strength of spirit she is the frailer of the two, and Írissë pulls her closer, the gates to Mandos swimming in her mind, yet locked. “Never, never, never,” she murmurs, but the storm’s wild howl swallows it.

Baked Apples

For prompt #8: Sweets and Treats. Nellas and Niënor share a treat.

Read Baked Apples

Nellas' storage shelf is garlanded in dried herbs and elderflowers, in neat apple-rings strung to dry, there are baskets of dried berries, nuts, and jars of honey and butter as her especial treasure. There are cured meat and smoked fish, roots and tubers, grain, a veritable squirrel's winter stock. And among all the bounties of the passing year sit apples, still whole and good, but soft and pitifully shrunken, wrinkled like old men's faces.

"What do you want with these, risk spoiling your larder?" asks Niënor, puzzled. Nellas merely smiles and shakes her head, blowing her a kiss, taking the apples. In the evening she stuffs them with honeyed nuts, even surrenders a gracious flake of butter for each, and bakes them in the fire's embers. Niënor watches, intrigued, for Dor-lómin was poor and Morwen's orchard plundered to the last, the bee-hives carried off, and the hazel-thickets stripped. If there were any stories of baked apples from before her birth, Morwen never told them, but the smells wafting at her drive out dark thoughts and soon enough, eating with relish, there is a smear of honey dripping down her lips. Nellas kisses it away with sticky lips of her own.

Longest Night

For prompt #9: Holiday music. Nimrodel and Mithrellas, and a midwinter celebration.

Read Longest Night

The longest night is fast approaching. In Lórinand the land sleeps unstained, the people grow quiet and festive, and keep to the gloaming and the night without fear of evil. As though the forest bears stars in her branches, candles burn in the telain, and voices rise to spell reminiscences, but night by night, the lights grow more, the tunes turn more to triumph: Look, the songs say, who we are. People of the Stars, this is our time. Awaken! Ele!

Loudest and first among them sings Nimrodel with the water’s voice, but her gleaming eyes rest, always, on Mithrellas.

Blaze of Candles

For prompt #10: Secret Santa. Lúthien seeks to help Galadriel bear the dark of winter.

Read Blaze of Candles

Galadriel hates and fears the cold darkness clawing at her shoulders, and even in Doriath behind the Girdle's shelter, winter nights haunt her. They all see it, but Lúthien especially, keen-eyed and closest, frets.

Thus she leaves tokens of light by Galadriel's door – candles, globed and gilded like the sun-tree's fruit, a silver flower like the moon-tree's blossom, stars and constellations, night after night after night – and flits away like a shadow.

On midwinter, Galadriel's door opens to invite her in, and Lúthien steps into a blaze of candles, Galadriel waiting among all her gifts lit at once.

Little Joys

For prompt #11: Snowman. On Helcaraxë, more than the needs of the body matter. (Aredhel/Elenwë).

Read Little Joys

Even through the screaming wind Írissë hears Elenwë yell, the disconsolate wail of Itaril, Turukáno shouting. When she crests the hard-packed snow that hid them, her heart skips a sluggish beat, and the ice in her veins thaws, a little: No great calamity, but a snowman, toppled and broken.

Elenwë, seeing her come, flings herself into Írissë’s waiting arms. The ice crust of the tear-tracks on her cheeks splinters. “Turukáno forbade her even that little joy, to conserve energy for walking! There is more to us than bodies!”

"Indeed," says Írissë. "Sometimes my brother knows too little of the heart."

Renewal

For prompt #12: Gift shopping. Anairë and Nerdanel explore Tirion after the Darkening.

Read Renewal

The Trees had kept the land abloom, and budding, ripening, harvest and rest came and went at the discretion of the Valar. The Sun’s seasons were a novelty, and so was waking to the delicate lace of frost over the windows the day Nerdanel had intended to stroll through the city, see stores reopen and to celebrate Tirion’s return to life.

Still, dusk found Nerdanel and Anairë laughing in a corner off the main market, gifts and trinkets forgotten at their feet, and their freezing hands wrapped around one another and a napkin of roasted chestnuts, their warm breaths mingling.

Mischief at the Feast

For prompt #13: Grinch. Tauriel's visitor knows ways to make a night of guarding more pleasant.

Read Mischief at the Feast

In the distance, already, the drums of the feast begin.

Baraneth sways her hips in the rhythm while she walks, giving Tauriel a glance from beneath coy lashes. “What are we out here for when there is light and music and a feast to be had?”

"So that the light and music and the feast may continue undisturbed. The noise attract less kindly guests, and – there is a story I must tell you sometime, a company of Dwarves that would surely have made off with our feast if not for our guards and magics…"

Baraneth laughs. “Would that I could show you Dorwinion,” she speaks close into Tauriel’s ear, eliciting a shiver. “Sing you our traditions, and teach our magics… more ancient than yours, I wager.”

"And what," says Tauriel with failing voice and weakening knees, for Baraneth’s mouth now nipping down on her neck is magic itself, "would you wager?"

"Hmm, perhaps just that, teaching you – taiai,” hums Baraneth in a peculiar tone, and Tauriel, opening her eyes finds herself and Baraneth becoming shadows, feeling a warm hand tug her forward, hearing her sun-bright laughter, seeing nothing. “Let others do the guarding, we have a feast to plunder.”

---

Chapter End Notes

I decided to make the inhabitants of Dorwinion Avari of the Hwenti tribe, and taiai is a hypothetical plural formation derived from Primitive Elvish daiâ, shadow, based on the one-word corpus we have of that language.

Remembrance

For prompt #14: Holiday traditions. Míriel and Indis recall a festivity from Cuiviénen.

Read Remembrance

Even though they dwell in Aman now, the Elves have a long memory, and while there is yet starlight on the sea visible from all the towers of Tirion, they will also remember Cuiviénen.

Undoubtedly some scoff at their past as primitive, but others gather in Aman’s would-be midwinter, once the harshest time, the time to remember the dead and the taken, and walk in slow procession, bearing simple gifts – a loaf of bread, a jar of wine, a length of cloth, a song. It all goes to the fire blazing in the palace courtyard beneath the Mindon, to follow those that need it to wherever they may be, for these are the Elves that did not go to Mandos’ halls, fearing more than heeding a call from the then-unknown West.

Míriel and Indis have their own ceremony after all others have departed and the light begins to silver; they walk together after all other sacrifices are gone, holding their joined hands above the flame.

"She is well cared-for," says Míriel to someone long-departed and well-missed in many sleepless nights, a woman Indis loved and lost, and still takes with her like a shadow.

"Sleep," says Míriel. "Worry not."

---

Chapter End Notes

Ties into my The Beautiful Ones 'verse.

One Man's Loss...

For prompt #15: Baking cookies. Another treat for Nellas and Niënor.

Read One Man's Loss...

"In return for the apples," says Niënor, grinning with a cookie-crumbed mouth. "Maltheniel baked them as a season’s gift, but her beloved was so adamant that he’d prefer wine, she gave all her cakes and cookies away to others, and he was the only one going without. And his face, you should have seen that, enough to curdle milk and then some!"

"Hush! Don’t speak ill of the courtiers," Nellas replies, herself grinning, and wolfs down another honey-cake. "I can’t quite kiss Maltheniel, but your bringing the cookies here ought to be rewarded," she laughs, and does as she promised.

Lights Within

For prompt #16: Christmas lights. Galadriel and Melian spend an afternoon together.

Read Lights Within

Dresses lie crumpled at their feet, while the winter sunlight through the ceiling window of Melian’s chambers slants in evening gold, a hue spearing Galadriel’s heart with unbidden memory.

And Melian reads hearts easily, especially beloved – and wounded – ones. “I also remember Aman,” she says, “the bells tolling, the lights upon Valmar’s domes, the Gardens of Lórien… but I would not miss the freedom of the world. And if I yearn…”

"… it lives in your very being, my Queen," says Galadriel, and Melian runs a hand through Galadriel’s hair. "And in yours – do you not see?"

 

Gifts for the Living

For prompt #17: Homemade gifts. Míriel and Indis re-affirm their bond. (A follow-up to chapter 14).

Read Gifts for the Living

The fire in the courtyard is burning low, the ceremony over, and Míriel and Indis sit and speak quietly in the old language, excessive syllables rattling like a child discovering the joy of speech, part consolation, part grief.

Before both slip into half-lidded drowsing, a last thing remains, an affirmation of care, a trade of love and reliance. Indis sets a swan-bone flute to her lips to play a song to lighten Míriel’s often-heavy heart, and Míriel gifts a length of gold-embroidered cloth worth all treasures of the palace.

Slowly their smiles return, knowing that for all wistfulness, they live.

Ice

For prompt #18: Ice. Crossing Helcaraxë is hard on Elenwë.

Read Ice

Dragging on across the Ice, Elenwë becomes ever more like Helcaraxë, her skin translucent and blue veins beneath, her face edge-sharp and her teeth glinting when thin lips pull into a would-be smile. Itaril becomes afraid of her and clings to Turukáno, but Írissë, trying to be gentle where she is impetuous, folds Elenwë’s body against hers when they rest, shivering against the relentless cold seeping through them both.

Elenwë ceases shivering eventually, and her eyes at least glow with warmth as she leans into Írissë’s embrace. For the moment it is as though her hold has tamed Helcaraxë itself.

Treasure Trove

For prompt #19: Holiday stories. Anairë and Nerdanel make new memories.

Read Treasure Trove

Nerdanel and Anairë hold a treasure-trove of stories between them, both the glad and the dour – Findekáno and Makalaurë as children, kicking a ball across the dinner table, Fëanáro and Nolofinwë growling blame at each other. But only rarely, if ever, they recall time alone, lost in the din of the family, the silent wives, the caring mothers as history would write them, only half their worth and half the truth.

It is Anairë who sits with crossed arms and frowns. “No more of that,” she says. “Our memories will be ours to make.”

"They already are," says Nerdanel.

Guest-Gift

For prompt #20: Cozy. Lúthien seeks refuge with Thuringwethil. (Mentions vampirism.)

Read Guest-Gift

Through Thuringwethil’s wing Lúthien sees the snow drive, but within she is held warmly cocooned, at a price: Hot breath against her neck, the thinnest skin over her pulse. Lúthien swallows and tilts her head – for she has no guest-gift other than herself, slipped the Girdle after an incident at the feast, overwhelmed by a snowstorm of her mother’s wrath, seeking Her of Secret Shadow who understands Lúthien’s own gift, even its mastery.

It stings, but let none say the Princess of Doriath shows herself ungracious to those who aid her with no more ill-will than their nature merits.

Wrappings

For prompt #21: Gift wrapping. Although Tauriel's visitor must depart, there is no parting them yet.

Read Wrappings

Arms over her head, Baraneth spins around and around again to unravel the gold silk wound about her body into pooling on the floor of the baths. She lifts a brown foot and steps out of it with a dancer’s poise, to Tauriel’s side in the water, with a sigh.

"We are departing tomorrow. News of unrest in Rhûn came upriver, and the Queen’s summons to all traders, merchants and travellers." Baraneth tips her head back, setting her shock of black hair floating. "She wants to see her wealth and people safe lest trade routes grow impassable."

"And you must obey. I understand," says Tauriel, disappointed even knowing Baraneth’s days in the forest were numbered.

"Yes. But give me a gift to remember you by," Baraneth bids, climbing from the water to open a towel wide for Tauriel to spin into - and pin her arms tight in the wrappings.

A token laughing protest, that she is not a gift to be wrapped so, is only that – a token. Come the next morning, Tauriel gains Thranduil’s permission to depart as the Dorwinion merchants’ guard, and wraps a shawl over face and hair to keep the surprise a little longer.

Daylight and Shadow

For prompt #22: Winter travel. After the storm, Lúthien and Thuringwethil seek shelter. (A follow-up to chapter 20.)

Read Daylight and Shadow

The storm passes with the night’s end, leaving drifts and dunes of snow. The branches in their ice-casings rattle in the wind, and the rising sun glares between shredded clouds – that, undoubtedly, also is Melian’s doing, knowing that twilight and shadow will find scant refuge in such a world of glistening, blistering white.

And indeed, Thuringwethil has clawed her hair into her face to shield her eyes. “Come,” Lúthien says, pity granting her strength, and gratitude for the past night’s shelter bestowing courage to clutch a clawing, spindly hand and guide Thuringwethil into deeper, darker shadows of the trees.

A Warm and Flickering Light

For prompt #23: Candles. Nerdanel makes a candle for Anairë.

Read A Warm and Flickering Light

"One, two, three…" Nerdanel counts under her breath, dripping ginger oil and cinnamon into beeswax, and soon shapes the still-pliant candle with her hands, though her palms redden. Heat and fire do not frighten her, too intimately familiar from her forge and once-husband.

She knows it still: the body taking shape beneath her hands is Anairë’s, also of fire, a warm and flickering light. Her sister once, by circumstance not blood, and Nerdanel smiles, smoothes a thumb over each breast and imagines her arching back and parting lips - and her smile when the door claps at her coming home.

Litany

For prompt #24: Snowball fight. Aredhel mourns Elenwë. (Character death.)

Read Litany

Elenwë is gone, is gone, is gone, the litany steams from Írissë’s breath into the raging storm, and no past moment of the Crossing can match her rage and grief, can match her wish to set the ice ablaze, to recover her, burn heat and life back into Elenwë’s body, bury the memory of her vanishing beneath falling ice, change how Helcaraxë changes and then takes one after the other after the other. Instead she’s kneeling, hurling clumps of snow as though to tear the Grinding Ice to pieces, but for all her curses there is, will never be, returning.

Times to Come

For prompt #25: New Year. All's well that ends well for Nellas and Niënor.

Read Times to Come

The winter is merciful; there is not much snow for Niënor to waddle through, heavy with child, following the trusty guidance of Nellas, who saved her twice already – once coming into the Girdle, and once from Teiglin, and now leading her on hidden ways to sea and safety.

By the new year she is cradling a golden-haired girlchild and dares a smile at last, while the gulls screech Lalien’s welcome from outside the windows.

"Do you think that we will be remembered?" asks Niënor, softly, and Nellas shakes her head. "But that is just as well. All is well."

---

Chapter End Notes

Lalien and her name are Elvie’s idea, and used with her permission.

Turuhalmë Garland

Ficlets from here on in are for the 2014 run of Femslash Yuletide.

Prompt #1: Trimming the Tree: Aerin visits Morwen and Niënor, bearing both gifts and demands.

Read Turuhalmë Garland

Through Morwen’s broken garth-fence and past the red-berried holly bush, Aerin comes in thick, green, fur-lined wool, and on a leather string she pulls a sled piled high with food and firewood. While she shakes the snow off her shoulders and knocks, Morwen sits by the window and debates - let her in and have some precious heat escape, or send her and her charity gifts away - but Niënor flies for the door and yanks it open. A gust of wind sweeps in, bearing snowflakes all the way into the hall.

Morwen draws the green cloth shawl closer around her shoulders. That, too, is a gift of Aerin’s, threadbare after five years of nigh-constant wear. She rises eventually, when the runners of the sled scratch over the wooden floor, despite the ache work and weather put in her bones, and sits Aerin into the guest-chair by the hearth with little ceremony except the ordinary, the curt question: “How much time?”

For what they have together is precious, and Morwen rations it the same way she rations all of Aerin’s gifts, as much as it rankles to rely on them. Aerin, with her gold-red hair, always brings some warmth with her that Morwen, despite her grief and widowhood, has begun to crave.

"Plenty," Aerin says, touching frozen fingers to Morwen’s cheek. "Lorgan summoned Brodda and his band of vultures to a feast and council. I feigned an illness, and he knows that even if I lied, running in winter won’t get me far, so he let me stay. We have three days."

Morwen doesn’t smile, but she breathes on Aerin’s fingers to warm them, and sees Aerin’s mien relax, mirroring her own. Shifting Niënor - who has since pilfered an apple from Aerin’s load of gifts and crams it against her mouth with both hands - up onto her hip, she says, “Aerin… you are of course welcome to stay here if you wish, for that time.”

"Only," Aerin says with a look at Niënor, "if we teach her how to trim the holly and weave a Turuhalmë garland."

"We won’t have wood for the log-drawing; there will be no need for decorations," Morwen objects. "She will sting herself."

"Niënor ought to learn our traditions, and her fingers will heal," Aerin says. "I will see to the log."

Morwen has never been one for the festivities. They have always been Húrin’s proclivity, but for the sake of their children she relented while times were good, before the war. Now, with Lalaith in the cold earth and Túrin gone, and Niënor, unhappy last-born, used to nothing except the silent observance of the longest night, she’s reluctant to allow something brighter, for fear that that, too, will be taken away.

She knows that Aerin knows this, also, that her condition would be futile if Morwen refused to let Aerin remain, refused to let her warm body sleep in Húrin’s place as so seldom happens, refused a comfort for herself that is both undeserved and unfaithful.

Aerin also knows that Morwen is worn thin, and as reluctant to refuse as she is to accept.

"Very well," Morwen says, relenting after a long pause, and presses her lips to Aerin’s warming fingers, closing her eyes.

Míriel's Song

Prompt #2: Holiday Traditions: Uinen has saved Tar-Míriel from the Downfall of Númenor, but she insists to return to the site of her erstwhile island once more. AU.

Read Míriel's Song

"Erukyermë, Erulaitalë and Eruhantalë, yes, but Meneltarma is lost, and there is no way now to reach the summit for the Three Prayers, nor do I have an offering to make - and it is not the time for one. Above the waves it is winter, so the dolphins tell," Míriel said. Uinen, with a sigh that made her shudder, beat her tail and slid around her, webbed fingers ghosting over her shoulders, pressing a kiss to her jawline.

"There is Mettarë of old, the end of the old year," Míriel continued. "I would pay my tributes to that at least, to Númenor that was before the Downfall and before her Sinking. Írima yë Númenor. A song, at least a song such as we sang then, expressing a wish, a hope, some blessing of the future… I am her queen, or was. It is my duty.”

When Uinen spoke, her voice resonated gently in Míriel’s head: “Vanwa yë Númenor. There is no approaching the area; the waters were devastated and there now is a fissure through the middle of the ocean where your island lay. You know this.”

"I do not remember it. Not even when you rescued me, nor when you gave me this form."

Uinen was silent. Míriel knew that she was often called to restrain Ossë when he raged upon the waters, wrecking such ships as still were upon the sea, but failed when she was faced with grief like becalmed water.

"You Child of Men, you bewilder me. Then let us go, so that you may see."

A kindly current, no doubt at Uinen’s call, sped them toward the fissure where Númenor had been, but long before they reached it, the water grew unpleasantly warm and prickled upon Míriel’s skin. The sea-floor, half lost to sight in the dirty water, had long ceased to be a field of corals, instead the shattered, twisted stone was littered with all matter of things, debris swept into the sea by the waves that had claimed the island. Beating her tail hard despite her misgivings and the numbness that surfaced anew at being faced with the wreckage, Míriel dove nearer to the bottom, so she could see: There the shards of a painted vase, an octopus curling among seaweed, there the beads of a necklace tangled amid the bare branches of a broken tree.

“Vanwa yë Númenor,” Uinen repeated, coming to her side and speaking as gently as before. “Will you go further?”

Míriel hesitated, hovering in the water beside Uinen. “No,” she said at last, softly chanting the verse of an old song that had been known across the island, and sung even when Quenya had long been outlawed. “Írima yë Númenor, nan úye sére indo-ninya símen, ullumë.”

It was not a new-year’s song, but there was truth in it, so it would suffice - and she saw Uinen’s face shift into a vague smile.

---

Chapter End Notes

The title references Fíriel’s Song, which occurs in the story, and is something of a bad pun insofar that the original Míriel, after her death, was also called Fíriel by some. A translation of most Quenya phrases can be found at the link; vanwa means “lost”. The AU is based on some glorious Legendarium Ladies’ April posts like this and this.

Thaw

Prompt #3: Chimney: After weaving the holly garland, Morwen, Aerin and Niënor come in from the cold. A continuation of my Day One ficlet.

Read Thaw

"And there will be tale-telling, and then we’ll burn the log and then and — the chimney will be puttering!” Niënor’s little voice hitches with breathless excitement and she hops backward when Morwen passes, carrying inside one end of the holly garland she and Aerin have wrought, stepping around the high-laden sled as though it were nothing but an unwelcome impediment.

"Sputtering, love," says Aerin with a soft laugh while she fixes her end of the garland above the banked hearth with Morwen’s dried herbs (most of them harmless, for medicine, tea or seasoning, but slightly apart some to preserve the moniker of witch-wife that the Easterlings have given her; nightshade and foxglove and lily of the valley, even dried toadstool, never to be used). Morwen’s lips press into a thin line, but she says nothing, still displeased that Niënor refused to continue working on the garland after pricking her finger just once. It’s owing to Aerin’s intervention that the afternoon did not end in tears.

The garland is beautiful, deep green and glossy, studded with clusters of red berries, a handful of pinecones and even a few ears of corn interwoven into the mesh, and when Morwen stands back to appraise their work, she leans into Aerin’s hold, into the arm around her hips, nuzzling her cold nose against the pulse-point of Aerin’s throat.

Aerin’s breath catches, but she allows the touch a moment longer, then saying to Niënor, bright-eyed and watching them with cold-reddened cheeks, “It is not Turuhalmë yet, but shall we see if we can make the chimney blaze already?”

Morwen makes a noise of protest, but Aerin shushes her gently, before she can warn about wasted necessities and the need for frugality, instead nudging her toward the pile of firewood on the sled.

"We have enough, we have enough. The warmth will do you well."

And indeed, Morwen’s frozen glowering thaws - hesitantly, and only a little, but that, too, is enough - and she gives Aerin a thin-lipped smile.